Originally Posted by: JeffS65

Originally Posted by: luckotdraw
Just thought I'd share something that has helped me become a better player, I started recording myself using Garage Band. I'm Just breaking into the intermediate player level, but the biggest step I made was recording and being able to listen to myself. The thing it forced me to do was play clean and use a metronome. I'm now dabbling recording two guitar tracks, or a guitar track and a mic'd up uke. I've learned so much doing this and will have a library of my progress. Still have to figure out drum tracks and bass, but that will come in time. Also want to eventually move onto a different program. Bought some monitors and some studio headphones. I love recording its a whole other tool to help elevate my guitar playing.

I'd say don't be in a hurry to dump Garageband and spend money needlesly if you don't have to. While Garageband has limits as compared to Protools or Logic Pro. You may not have channel strips, you still have like functionality in GB. Also, it may appear that you may not be able to mix some things like drums with seperate channels for Bass Drum vs Snare vs Hi-Hat etc...But there are tricks to still allow you to do that.

There's little you couldn't do to get what you need from GB and the audio quality is the same as any other DAW. Before dishing cash for a new DAW, I decided to maximize what I can do with GB. I do follow the RecordingRevolution.com free blog posts. I learned a lot about fundementals like gain staging and other stuff.

Granted, that wasn't the point of your post. It's true, recording yourself can be very revealing. You may think you sound awesome when you're jamming away but the warts of our playing can be missed until playback.

The opposite may be true also...you think what you are playing when you are jamming away sounds absolutely awful, but on playback you find it's actually pretty good. That's my exeperience more often then not.

I follow Recording Revolution also...great stuff on the blog and in the free instructional youtube videos. My mixes have definitely improved since I've picked up on some of his tips.